Treat Your Own Achilles Tendinitis Paperback – May 22, 2012

I am a daily basketball player at my YMCA and have been so for the past 8 years. I take it very seriously and will only miss a day if I am very sick or am out of town. Because I play basketball so often I had developed off and on mid point Achilles tendon issues in my left leg.In the Summer of 2017 my Achilles tendinopathy came roaring back and never went away. I had been dealing with it for over a year and it was progressively getting worse. I had tried every sleeve and Achilles brace under the sun, along with KT tape, Penetrex, and even some dark magic thrown in to make the tendinopathy go away, and nothing was working. I refused to stop basketball so it never healed. It was hurting enough to where I probably only had a few months left of basketball and that scared me to death.While making a last ditch attempt to find some "miracle brace", I found this book in the Amazon listings and decided to give it a try. I'm extremely glad I did because it literally saved my basketball and fitness "career".I'm about to start on week 8 of the eccentric heel drops and now my Achilles is almost back to normal. The bump is getting smaller and I no longer have that horrible throbbing pain I'd get if I had my foot hanging off of an edge. I've also been mostly pain free while going 100% in basketball for these past few weeks. (I still wear a sports sleeve while playing basketball which does help too) I still feel some slight pain once in a while but not near the degree I was before starting the heel drops, and that usually only happens when my Achilles isn't warmed up yet.When I first started the eccentric heel exercises, it did make my Achilles feel worse for about a week and a half. I almost stopped because of it, but remembered that the book mentioned that this would happen and to just push through it, so I did. It was pretty noticeable when it finally started to turn the corner. After about 2 to 3 weeks it was already feeling stronger while doing more explosive movements off of that leg and I felt much less worried about it suddenly rupturing while playing basketball.I 100% recommend this book to ANYONE with midpoint Achilles tendinitis or chronic tendinosis like I had.

I'm a life-long runner, including some races, never had any Achilles problem. It's distressing to see that many people have this as a many-year chronic condition. If, like me, you've done some research, you have seen many different explanations and remedies. Confusing, so what's needed is verifiable data ("evidence based treatment"). This book provides that. (It is somewhat unusual, in that it's language and format are designed to reach even people who don't read well, or who don't typically read books -- so it's somewhat dumbed-down, while as the same time the sophisticated and thorough information provided could be useful to a medical research scholar!) The author seems to be a "scholar" on the subject, evidenced by abundant citation of research and legitimate end-notes giving references of clearly prestigious scientific-medical journals. Seems like real help for a real big problem. Maybe the fact that this is so good and badly needed is why Amazon was out of stock (very unusual for Amazon) and I had to get it from the Amazon vendor. This book will not help you if your Achilles is torn, except by providing information. The remedial advice given is for Achilles pain without a tear, which I think is far more common. ----- OK - THIS IS AN UPDATE-PROGRESS REPORT. I am getting good prgress, 3 weeks into the 12-week program. Some notes: this is not difficult, but the program is only for people who have enough self-discipline to do something twice a day EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL. To do it correctly, you should have a good backpack that can carry lots of weight, and weights to put in it. I have 10-lb dumbells that work OK. ANSWERING THE QUESTION BY THE REVIEWER WITH ACHILLES TENDONOPATHY in both legs: refer to your physician or physical therapist, or the author. I am not qualified to give medical advice. In my experience, instead of lifting myself up by plantar-flexing the other foot, as described in the book, instead I lift myself with the other foot on a stack of books that is the correct height to position the foot being treated a little higher than the top of the stroke. For me it works much better that way, and this seems like an improvement to the whole technique. If I understand the princople of the exercise, it makes sense. The lifting doesn't involve the foot I'm treating, so the method for lifting doesn't affect the treament of that foot. It seems this is the solution if both are injured, because the lifting side is not using the foot on that side (it is just staying flat on the books) and instead the work of lifting is done by the leg and knee on the lifting side. I'm hugely thankful for this book - it's a life saver, and I will be buying others by this author on other joints. By the way, my doctor has asked to borrow this book from me, so right now he has it. >>> Update (Dec 3, 2013): I've been doing the exercise as described for almost all of the 12 weeks recommended, and in my experience it works as promised. It's nice to know that for some ailments medical research had discovered the cause and cure without drugs or much expense. I have been using 50 pounds (dumbells of weight in a good quality, sturdy backpack(dumbbells) which I increased gradually, and don't plan to go over 50 pounds. Even though the procedure is easy,it does require self-discipline to do it every day in the morning and eveningj, and I keep a log. I will buy other books by this author.

This slim volume is for people who suffer from Achilles tendinitis. It opens with a long explanation about the morphology and connections of the Achilles tendon and explains its most common failure mode. This book does not discuss insertional Achilles tendinitis (which I have suffered from.) There is a variant of the exercise in this book for people with insertional Achilles tendinitis, but it is not mentioned. After all the extremely repetitive large font-big margins text in the book, Jim Johnson then gets on to his twelve week program for treating Achilles tendinitis which consists of...one exercise. Seriously. There is a minor variation in exercise setup at the end if you happen to have this in both feet, but otherwise his program is one exercise.In Johnson's defense, this is an exercise that I have done under the supervision of a physical therapist myself, and it is effective, which is why I gave the book a generous three stars. The exercise is largely effective but the book is not a great value in my opinion. One simple exercise shouldn't take 69 pages to discuss, particularly at the list price this book goes for. Achilles tendinitis is very painful and is no laughing matter, but there are more concise resources that are quite credible online for free. If you have Achilles tendinitis feel free to give the eccentric exercise Johnson advocates here a try. I have personally done it and found it helpful (a variation not involving a stair may be better for those with insertional Achilles tendinitis), though I would first get a referral to a physical therapist well acquainted with athletic injuries to guide me if possible.